Context at a Glance
Author:Traditional Attribution
Topic:jude Chapter 1 Study
This chapter provides a foundational look at the theological themes of jude, analyzed across multiple historic translations for maximum scholarly depth.
Jude 1
New Revised Standard Version
1Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, who are beloved in God the Father and kept safe for Jesus Christ:
2May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance. Occasion
3Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
4For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Three examples of judgment
5Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
6And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day.
7Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. A further example of the impropriety of slander; three examples of error
8Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones.
9But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
10But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct.
11Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam's error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah's rebellion.
12These are blemishes on your love-feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted;
13wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever. A prophecy of judgment
14It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, "See, the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones,
15to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
16These are grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their own lusts; they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage. An apostolic prophecy; exhortations
17But you, beloved, must remember the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;
18for they said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts."
19It is these worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, who are causing divisions.
20But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit;
21keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.
22And have mercy on some who are wavering;
23save others by snatching them out of the fire; and have mercy on still others with fear, hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies. Doxology
24Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing,
25to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. REVELATION
539REVELATION Introduction The book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse (from the Greek word meaning "disclosure," "unveiling," or "revelation") brings the canon of the New Testament to a close, appropriately so in view of its vivid visions of the consummation of God's plan of judgment and salvation. While the book presents itself as a work of prophecy (1.3; 22.10), it has given its name to a literary genre, the "apocalypse," found in a range of Jewish and Christian writings that first appeared about
250BCE. Like other apocalyptic literature, the book of Revelation presents God's revelation to a human recipient. Unlike other apocalypses, which are pseudonymous, with their authors writing in the name of some revered figure from antiquity, the author of this book of Revelation identifies himself by his own name as John (1.1, 4, 9; 22.8). Although some ancient authorities (e.g., Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 81.4) have suggested that this is the apostle John, the son of Zebedee (see Mk 3.17), the internal evidence of the book itself is inconclusive. The author's acquaintance with the Jerusalem Temple and the rites conducted there, the depth of his knowledge of the Hebrew Bible (of the
404verses in Revelation, some
275include one or more allusions to passages in the Hebrew Bible, or to its Greek version, the Septuagint), as well as his adoption of a literary genre that was familiar in Palestinian Judaism, combine to suggest that John might have been a Palestinian Jewish Christian who fled to the Diaspora as a consequence of the First Jewish Revolt against the Romans (66-73 CE). His self-identification to the seven churches as "your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance" (1.9) suggests that he was well known to his audience, probably because he exercised a prophetic ministry among them (see 22.9). But he mentions the twelve apostles as figures from the past (21.14) and does not refer to himself as one of them. The traditional REVELATION
540identification of the John of the book of Revelation with the apostle of the same name is thus questionable. While it is likely that the book of Revelation draws on traditional material and on source were set in writing before the fall of Jerusalem in
70CE (e.g., chs
11and 12), it is probable that the book was composed toward the end of the reign of the emperor Domitian (81-96 CE). The book is addressed to "the seven churches that are in Asia" (1.4), Christian communities in the Roman pro-consular province of Asia, located in the western portion of present-day Turkey. The book demonstrates its author's familiarity with the specific situation of each of the seven churches, beginning with Ephesus, the city that was the administrative capital of the province. The seven cities were complex and diverse in economic, social, political, and religious terms. Whether or not Christians faced organized and widespread persecutions sanctioned by Roman imperial authorities at the time the book was written, Christians in Asia were suffering serious oppression, facing the danger of being "slaughtered for the word of God and the testimony they had given" (6.9). One such martyr is Antipas, identified by name in the message to the church at Pergamum (2.13). John himself endured exile on the island of Patmos "because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (1.9), and he reports that his visions took place there. A variety of voices and viewpoints competed for the attention of the late first-century Christians to whom the book of Revelation was originally addressed. John exhorts them to stand firm in their convictions, to resist "with patient endurance" (2.2, 19; 3.10) and at any cost the overwhelming pressures to yield to accommodation and compromise. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in
70CE gave John ample cause to identify Rome as Babylon, recalling the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in
586BCE. The breadth and depth of Rome's political and economic power found expression in the widespread worship of the emperor in the book of province of Asia, with temples to the emperor and to Rome personified as the goddess Roma. The book of Revelation takes sides in a battle over sovereignty, where the Roman emperor competes with God and Christ in a contest for the allegiance of the faithful. Warning that those who worship the emperor, symbolized by "the beast" (13.1-10), will suffer ultimate defeat, the book urges believers to "hold fast to the faith of Jesus" REVELATION
541(14.12) and to share in the paradoxical victory of his death and resurrection. The book of Revelation is a work of extremes, ranging from soaring heights of hymnody inspired by Hebrew psalms and canticles to the gruesome language of plagues, warfare, and bloodshed. It uses the dualistic language characteristic of the apocalyptic genre to paint vivid portraits of the opposing sides in the eschatological conflict that will culminate in the victory of God and the final defeat of all evil. With its symbolic numbers and colors, animals, and angelic and demonic beings, and replete with echoes and images drawn from the literature of the ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, Greece, and Rome, the book of Revelation is so notoriously complex that the church father Jerome (345-420 CE) was led to remark that it contains as many mysteries as it contains words. Origen (185-254 CE) exclaimed, "Who can read the revelations granted to John without being amazed at the hidden depth of the ineffable mysteries, a depth apparent even to the person who does not understand what the text says?" (On First Principles 4.2.4). Many centuries later, the modern writer D.H. Lawrence wrote, "When we read Revelation, we feel at once there are meaning behind meanings.' The symbolic visions of the book are by no means selfexplanatory, and even John reports the need for the intervention of an angelic mediator to explain the meaning of the mystery disclosed to him (17.7). This characteristic, common in other works of the same genre, serves to emphasize that there are transcendent levels of meaning that must be discerned. The significance of events on earth is to be sought above and beyond what is immediately apparent, and it is ultimately to God that believers must turn to receive the meaning and guidance that strengthen their perseverance in the face of adversity. Over the centuries, the book of Revelation has been considered from a wide variety of interpretive strategies and approaches, ranging from literal readings of the book as predictive prophecy to readings that recognize in its utopian language the promise of hope in the midst of contemporary situations of suffering and oppression. Although the structure of the book of Revelation is widely debated among scholars, there is general agreement that it involves a series of parallel, interconnected, and yet ever progressing sections. It begins REVELATION
542with a prologue (1.1-3), an epistolary salutation (1.4-8) and an inaugural vision (1.9-20), which are followed by messages to each of the seven churches (2.1-3.22). Next (4.1-5.14) we find a vision of God enthroned and of Jesus depicted as a Lamb, who receives the seven sealed scrolls from the hand of God. A series of sevenfold visions commences at 6.1, beginning with the opening of each of the seven seals (6.1-8.5), followed by the sounding of each of the seven trumpets (8.6-11.19). The sounding of the seventh trumpet is followed by the vision of the woman, the child, and the dragon (12.1-17), the vision of the two beasts (13.1-18), and a threefold vision of the victory and vindication of the faithful (14.1-20). These are followed by a final sevenfold series, the outpouring of the bowls of divine wrath (16.1-21). 17.1-18.24 presents the vision of the fall of Babylon, followed by the great doxology of 19.1-10 that also looks forward to the eschatological victory (19.11-21), the defeat of Satan (20.1-10), the last judgment (20.11-15), and the vision of the new Jerusalem (21.1-22.5). The book concludes with an epilogue (22.6-21).